Because You Bested Me
by Nehszriah
Summary: Malcolm finds a new contact in his mobile, one that he did not put in there himself. [Malcolm/Clara] . [Sequel to Citrus With A Hint of Tea] . [rated T, though possessing Tuckeresque language] . [slightly edited to smooth the story]


A/N: My beta barely touched this, but okay sure let's go. This only happened because I needed to write something that would make me feel better.

**This is a direct sequel to _Citrus With A Hint of Tea_ and if you haven't read it I recommend that you do, please.** It will help make sense of a couple things, like how Malcolm and Clara even met.

Edit: Someone on tumblr pointed out I had made some mistakes, so I corrected them. Just putting it out there that I'm always open to people pointing things out if I cock up, because I'm willing to fix things (or at least discuss them).

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><p><span>Because You Bested Me<span>

He stared at the number sitting unsolicited on his Blackberry, a twinge of curiosity tugging at the back of his mind. It was not there when he last browsed his contacts listing, but it certainly was there _now_, teasing him with its existence.

'_Clara Oswald_,' Malcolm read silently, over and over again. It was the name of the woman who had stolen the phone directly from his hand the day before. The name of the woman who made him collect said phone by reaching into her blouse like he was some sort of fucking five-minute call boy. She had gone through his mobile, potentially compromising dozens of confidential numbers that by no means had any place in the hands of an educator in Shoreditch. He quickly glanced at the clock—half past four.

"Sam…?" he called out.

"Yeah?"

"I need to make a sensitive call; some cunt comes a-knocking tell them I'm off having a wank or something." He heard Sam laugh and close the door to her portion of the office from the hallway; her having the reception area was damn useful at times. Malcolm brought up Clara's number and hit the send button, leaning back in his desk chair.

Ringing. Ringing. _Ringing_.

"Hello?" She was outside, in a bit of wind. "Anyone there?"

"This isn't a pocket-dial," Malcolm hissed.

"Oh, so you found my number."

"Not funny, sweetheart. This is my _work_ number. You know, for having a shout at brain-dead ministers and incompetent aides."

"You seem like the man who's only had work numbers; I don't mind." A bell in the background… a shop, possibly?

Malcolm sputtered, sitting straight up. "I can make your life a living hell."

"No, you won't." He could hear the smile on her lips.

"And how do you know that?"

"We've been talking for two minutes and you have yet to swear—I consider that a sign that this isn't you calling to have a shout."

Narrowing his eyes, Malcolm glared at the screensaver on his computer monitor. What _did_ he call her for, anyways? He'd already forgott—wait—that was it…

"I had been hoping that maybe I could talk some of those delicate phone numbers out of your hands," he said. "Don't even try to tell me that you had the direct mobile of every single government cunt of importance in your bra and you never thought once to write some down."

"Fine, then I won't," Clara said. She said something unintelligible—possibly something to a clerk—and laughed. "Are you saying you're afraid of me?"

"No," he replied, almost a little too quickly. Malcolm coughed into his fist and pretended to clear his throat.

"Then you're afraid of what I might be, or _who_ I might be, and what a massive security breach such as a lowly schoolteacher having hold of a mobile could have on the fate of the nation… or at least your credibility."

"Please don't tell anyone about this," he groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "The last thing I need is this getting to the fucking press."

"I won't. All I did was put my number in your phone, Malcolm." She was back out in the wind again, huffing slightly as if walking at a brisk pace. "I had one reason to go into your phone and one only."

Malcolm paused, not sure if he wanted to know where this was going. "…which was…?"

"Don't you usually get a girl's number if your hand's been down her shirt? Anyways, I have to go. Was that all?"

"No, just one thing…" He took a breath and looked out the window, grimacing. "Let me take you out for dinner… as a thank you for staying quiet."

"You don't get a cookie for doing the right thing," she replied with something between a giggle and a sigh.

"In my world you do, because the right thing isn't always what happens. Please, it'll make me feel better. Friday?"

"Sorry; I'm busy Friday and most of next week. Can you text me when you're free next?"

"Uh… sure…?"

"Talk to you then." She hung up.

Malcolm shuddered as he sat silently. It was a lot of time between when Clara was next free and then. He was going to be on-edge the entire time, a prospect he was not looking forward to, and he needed to dull that edge.

"Sam…?"

"Yes?"

"Get me Cliff, over at Social Affairs. I need to have a shout and he hasn't had a good bollocking in nearly a fortnight."

* * *

><p>It was Friday night and Clara Oswald was bored out of her skull.<p>

No, that really was not the best way to phrase it. She was at a banquet, celebrating the winners of an academic accolade—a few of which were her students—and as a favourite teacher she had been invited to come along. It was a fairly posh event, with a government official giving the award straight to the recipients and everything. So, really, it was an honour, but even honours can be total bores.

Dinner had passed and now it was time for forced banter. Normally she was very good at it, but there were only so many times she could take the same questions over and over again from the same group of people. It was all just the subject she taught, if she had a boyfriend lying in wait for her at home, what she thought of the newest batch of shows on the telly she had no interest in watching, and even…

"So, tell me where did you get that bracelet?" a woman asked, pointing out the busted dimension-hopper sitting on her wrist. Clara knew it was her fault for leaving it on, but she still felt she was not yet ready to place it in the jewellery box for good.

"Old boyfriend; very dear to me," she lied through a smile. It was only half a lie, as she knew she should have been much better to Danny than she had been. "I'd ask him, but the end of our relationship was a bit… sudden."

"…oh. Sorry to ask," the woman frowned, realizing she had hit a nerve. She made some sort of excuse and walked away, leaving Clara to stand off to the side of the loitering area. Drink in-hand and false shyness plastered on her face, she avoided talking with other people as long as she could. An hour more and she could politely duck out and catch a cab home—she was more there for her students than anything. Socializing took a lot out of her these days, instead preferring to shut herself in and make her father worry with each passing year over missing in-laws and the loss of sitting duties involving more than her flat and some fish.

'_At least she had been smarter than most and left without trying to dig_,' Clara thought. She scanned the crowd, looking for a hobnobbing Year Ten or three, failing to notice the tall, lithe frame that swooped in from her right until he was almost right on top of her.

"You turned down dinner for this shitfest?" Malcolm smirked. Clara jumped when she heard him, almost dropping her drink in the process.

"Fuck!" she swore loudly. Immediately she clapped a hand over her mouth and her eyes went wide as they darted back and forth, making sure no one else took notice. There were no stares; she was safe… at least generally.

"Showing your true colours, I see," Malcolm tutted. He gestured out towards the crowd with the drink he was holding. "One of yours out there? I wasn't paying attention."

"Three, actually," Clara replied, face growing hot in embarrassment. "All excellent students; each one of them deserve it. I think the better question is: Why on earth are _you_ here?"

"Babysitting," he shrugged. "That's my charge, on his way out the door. Surprise, surprise, he got through two fucking speeches and some private conversation without cocking up once. I really don't get paid enough for this." Clara glanced over at the door to the hall where the government man who presented the accolades was being ushered out by his wife.

"Something we have in common, it seems," she grumbled. Looking up at Malcolm, she could see one eyebrow arched perfectly. "Well, I love my students, but things like this are what really grind on me."

Eyebrow lowering, Malcolm shrugged. "You're too good for this lot anyways, the pissants and their self-congratulations. We might as well be honouring everyone who hasn't shit their pants in playgroup this month with the way they go on."

"Why are you being nice to me?" Clara asked as she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "You didn't sound this friendly on the phone the other day."

"That's because the other day, I wasn't offering a fellow functioning human being an out from some soul-sucking bore of a function. God… this party couldn't be more boring if you added James May in a Panda."

Clara laughed at that. "A government petrol-head?"

"I like to listen to them shit on one another; what do you say?"

She thought for a moment, watching the boyish grin that was gradually creeping onto Malcolm's face. It seemed so foreign and strange, with his teeth bared and mouth lopsided, that she should have been warded off, yet…

"Give me five minutes to say goodbye to the kids."

"I'll get us a cab."

They put their drinks down on a nearby table and parted. After Clara found her students and bid them well ("See you in class on Monday; I am incredibly proud of you and that's the honest truth"), she claimed her jacket from the coat-check room and made her way down the stairs to the lower level and out the front door. Sure enough, Malcolm was there at the side of the street attempting to hail a cab. Clara stepped in front of him and held her arm out, getting service almost immediately.

"I should pick up schoolteachers more often," he laughed as he opened the door for her to slide in first. She looked at him, studying his face post-merriment and how it pulled his face into such different lines than before. "Pub—you pick."

It ended up being a long, silent ride in horrid traffic as they made their way to their destination. Clara felt her companion tense, his posture stiffening as the prolonged car ride took more turns and detours than necessary.

Finally they arrived at Clara's favourite pub, where they got out, entered, and promptly slid into a high-backed booth that curved to accommodate a round table. Malcolm finally begun to relax, taking off his scarf and shrugging out of his coat. He placed them both down on part of the empty curve of booth between them and left to get their drinks. Clara did the same with her jacket, the top part overlapping on his.

"Thank you," he said as he put the beers down and slid in across from her. At first Clara thought he was talking to someone else, possibly someone he cut off, but looked up and saw that his eyes were locked on her.

"Excuse me?"

"Thank you for not saying anything during the ride. I don't like talking around cab drivers—too anonymous. Get too used to talking around them and one wrong word said behind the head of one uppity cabbie that thinks he can make a fucking difference in a smear campaign and I've got a week's extra work piled on what I've already got. That, and my driver has the night off and I never know what to say to a cab driver."

"You have a driver?" Clara asked. Malcolm paused mid-sip and grimaced at his rare slip-up.

"See what I mean? Loose tongues make fucking jackasses out of everyone," he shrugged. "Everyone above a certain level has one, or at least access to one, so it's not a big deal. It's our equivalent to a teacher's office or lounge… somewhere the brats can't go and spoil your mood."

"Then you've never been inside a teacher's lounge," Clara snorted derisively.

"What, you think I haven't?" he replied in an annoyed grunt. He shot a glare across the table at her, but tempered it when he saw her shrink back. "Hey, I'm not _that_ upset."

"No… I'm sorry," she apologized. "I'm not really good at this; I haven't exactly been on the dating scene lately and I don't get out much." Malcolm took a long draught of his beer and shrugged.

"Neither have I—almost fucking married to my job. You?"

Clara hesitated, tapping her fingernails on the side of her glass. "I lost my boyfriend and my best friend on the same day a few years ago. Haven't really felt like socializing much since."

"Was it the metal men thing?" he asked. She silently nodded, causing his eyebrows to rise in surprise. "I was doing clean-up on that fucking disaster for months. The lady they got running the show was at least competent. Not the kind I'd ask to the pub at the end of the day, but her brain stem works and she keeps a nice cognac in her office."

"I didn't peg Kate as the drinking type…" Clara regretted the words immediately after speaking them, as Malcolm's eyes grew wide in surprise, complimenting his still-raised brows perfectly.

"How do you know her?" he asked, his voice dropping low. "She technically doesn't exist."

"I, uh, met her because the incident," she lied quickly. "It was because of my boyfriend… and my best friend. We still exchange cards at Christmas." She dropped her gaze back down to her drink—it wasn't a _complete_ lie, at the very least, but it still made her stomach churn.

"Tch… doesn't matter," Malcolm scoffed. Clara blinked in surprise and snapped her eyes back up, watching him sneer into his glass. He had looked away from her, lost in thought. "I need to hear about your dirty laundry as much as you need to hear about mine. At least I know you're the real deal."

"…and what was I before…?"

He grinned back at her, flashing his teeth. "A brazen coquette of a teacher with a trail of broken men behind her…and dazed students most likely. Fuck… how does anyone concentrate in your class?"

"Very carefully, I imagine," Clara groaned, suppressing a chuckle. The idea that she could have had a string of loves only to destroy them was normally deplorable, let alone the coquette comment, yet coming out of Malcolm it sounded like a compliment of the highest order. "You're… odd, you know that?"

"Well, I certainly didn't get to where I am by playing canasta on Thursdays and taking up gardening. You're certainly no Jane Public yourself—who made you like this?"

She blinked, genuinely confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's not every day someone has the fucking foreskin to reproach me for my language, and the days it is a woman are fewer and further between. People think I'm just some raging maniac and learn to cower as soon as they hear I'm in the building, but I notice other things just as much as anyone." Malcolm took another drink and let his words stew. "You don't look or sound or act like someone who's had to claw their way to their position, so that can only mean someone turned you into this."

"I thought we weren't airing dirty laundry," Clara frowned. Her hand instinctively found the bangle on her wrist.

"Nah… this is me figuring out if I've got competition, or if I need to destroy someone first."

"No… no competition," she sighed, shaking her head. "This is the first date I've been on in years. Like I said… I haven't been socializing much."

"You sure? You almost make it sound like your boyfriend and best friend eloped or something and didn't invite you."

"Yeah, I'm sure, and no, they didn't. It was… the metal men incident." She shrugged slightly and took another sip of beer. "Thank you for taking me out though; it's nice. Now you can rest easy that your confiscated mobile story is safe with me."

Malcolm snorted in laughter, a sharp, grating noise that almost sent beer up his nose. "I don't see dinner on the table—I said I'll take you out for dinner, so I'll take you out still. Next time, we just don't pick a banquet hall as our meeting place."

"Then…" Clara hesitated, wondering if she wanted to hear the answer to her question. "Then what is this?"

"You were dying back there, and I know first-hand how that feels," he muttered, carefully examining the liquid at the bottom of his glass. "We're the same, I can tell, and who the hell leaves the only other fucking smart person in the room to sink with the ship?"

"Excuse you, but I'll back the intellect of my students," she snapped. Malcolm shook his head unapologetically.

"The Punjabi girl, yeah, and the ginger maybe, but the others I don't have much faith in. All those kids have ambition and knowledge falling out of their arses, that is true, but not many of them are grounded enough to not let it go to their heads. It's still too raw in them to recognize unless you've trained yourself to see past potential." He finished off his beer and frowned. "That's where we differ, I think. You see the ones with promise off into the world, while I have to pick out of that fucking mess the ones that have used their brains long enough to have figured out how to not stick their cocks where they don't belong."

"Charming," Clara replied dully. She downed the last of her glass and began to slide out of the booth. "I hate to cut this short, but I really must get going. There's a lot of marking waiting for me at home—it's just a short walk, so no bother."

"Then at least let me see you off," he said. "Please, it will make me feel better. That's novel where I come from."

"…like dinner?"

"Yeah, like dinner."

After Clara agreeing, Malcolm paid for their drinks and met her just outside the door to the establishment. They walked along the pavement side-by-side, only barely brushing up against one another.

"Thanks for the drink," she said eventually. "It was kind of you."

"You're welcome," he nodded before letting out a light chuckle. "That's not something I hear every day."

"A thank-you?"

"That I'm kind."

"Then, why aren't you?" Clara asked. Malcolm tilted his head as he furrowed his brow.

"Not what? Kind? Kindness gets you nowhere in politics, sweetheart. Anything remotely resembling kindness usually gets left on my front stoop."

"I think you should try it more—it suits you," she said. Clara was about to continue when a cat jumped out of a bush and nearly landed on her feet. Startled, she jumped to the side and slammed into Malcolm, gasping for air.

"Fucking cat… I hope its owner brings it in soon," he hissed. He bent down and looked at her. "You alright?"

"Y-Yeah…" Clara nodded. She blushed when she realized she was holding on to Malcolm's arm out of reflex, but did not let go. "I'm usually not this jumpy…"

"Don't apologize; it's fine. I would have been scared too if it almost landed on me."

They continued walking, arm-in-arm, not saying much other than Clara giving direction via a tug of an arm and a "this way". Eventually they made it to her street, which prompted Clara to clear her throat to ask the question she had been silently forming.

"Malcolm?"

"Yes Clara?"

"I can't help wonder why you're so interested in me," she said quietly. They walked a few paces in silence before she continued. "I mean, I stole your mobile while you were on the line with the Minister of Transport. Shouldn't that make you want to tear me down instead of take me out for drinks and dinner?"

"No."

She blinked. "No…? Why's that?"

"Because you bested me," he said simply. "No one bests me. I can't help but admire that."

"I… I guess…" Clara nodded. She looked up at the building they were approaching—her flat block. "Well, here we are."

"Expect a text sometime after next week then," Malcolm said, allowing her arm to slip out of his. "I'm holding you to dinner—I usually drink better stuff than that piss-water even when I'm not sitting across from someone."

"Then I'll be sure to not schedule an exam," Clara smirked. She turned towards Malcolm and gently pulled down his face, placing a peck on his cheek. "Talk to you then."

"Uh… yeah…" was all he could manage. She smiled at the stupor that had been smacked across his face and walked into the flat block without another word.

'_Dinner yet can't hurt, it really can't_,' she thought as she entered her flat. Clara kicked off her shoes and went straight to the kitchen to put some water in the kettle. '_He's a bit rough, but then again… who isn't? Not me_.' The kettle was only halfway filled before she sniffed curiously and noticed something…

The top of her jacket smelled like aftershave, right where it had laid on Malcolm's in the booth.

She smiled a little as she hit the switch to turn the kettle on. Pulling the collar up to her nose, she breathed in deeply—it smelled good. No, better than good. It smelled _great_.


End file.
